The use of real firewood for open fireplaces has a number of disadvantages. In modern city apartments, for instance, wood does not store well. Besides, the wood is often delivered while still wet and must be stacked to dry. In addition, wood is in short supply worldwide and therefore expensive.
Because of these disadvantages, firewood substitute products have been developed and offered. They are either extruded wood wastes such as wood shavings or cylindrical compacts consisting of a mixture of paraffin and sawdust. While, because of its compact constitution, the first-named product has quite inferior burning properties both with respect to ignition as well as its flame development, the last-mentioned product burns better but does not come close to real fireplace logs either in appearance or in the burning properties.